Recipe: Peanut Butter Mousse

Have you ever heard of a picture book called ‘A Near Thing for Captain Najork‘? It was one of my favorites as a kid, and I can still recite the opening lines: “One day Tom was fooling around with his chemistry set, and he invented anti-sticky. Then Tom fooled around with jam, and wheels and connector rods, and he invented a two-seater jam-powered frog. Tom and Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet took the frog out for a spin.” (okay, I may be paraphrasing slightly because I’m too lazy to get up and cross the room to check the book, but you get the idea!)

Anyway, this weekend I was in the kitchen fooling around with cake, because I was doing a trial run of a cake I’ll be making for a friend. Then I fooled around with cream cheese and peanut butter and I invented the best peanut butter mousse cake filling ever.

And because I love you, I’m going to share my secrets with you.

The chocolate cake was my standard recipe, straight from the back of the Hershey’s cocoa box, but while I started out making peanut butter mousse from a recipe I abandoned it almost immediately and made it up myself. It’s the perfect chocolate cake filling.

I used extra crunchy peanut butter because it was all we had, but I ended up loving the texture it added to the cake. If you prefer a smooth filling, though, just use creamy peanut butter.

Perfect Peanut Butter Mousse

8 oz of cream cheese

1 1/2 or 2 cups of peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)

1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream

Let the cream cheese soften and come to room temperature. Whip the heavy cream until it is fluffy and thick enough to form soft peaks, and set it aside. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or a hand mixer) combine the cream cheese, peanut butter, and brown sugar, beating until thoroughly combined and fluffy. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and add half of the whipped cream, folding it in gently until well combined, then add the other half of the whipped cream and fold it in as well–be gentle to avoid deflating the whipped cream, just keep folding until everything is combined.

Pile your mousse onto a layer of chocolate cake, top with another layer, cover with chocolate buttercreme, and get yourself a glass of milk, because you’re going to want it!